Time for another full English post! Yeah, and this time, unlike the previous About Being Bald and Why I Love Being One post which is a lame english-translated version of Tentang Gaya Rambut post, this post gonna be planned, thought, and written directly in English straight away, right away with a little bit of Google Translate here and there and Youtube break now and there. Yep, and this time, I am gonna talk about my somewhat twisted way of choosing my shoes and share my deep wisdom (?).

As some of you, I do almost all kinds of sports. Futsal, basketball, volleyball, badminton, swimming, tennis, karaoke (Yeah, last time I checked, it is considered sports), any other sport you name it, I do all of it. Quick clarification though, I didn’t mean to say that I am good at all of those sports. I just really like to do them and want to be really good at all of them. Sadly, I am sucks at all of it, except at karaoke (I am awesome in pretending that I am a rockstar!). Yeah, although right now I am entering an age where people usually stops exercising and channels their energy to work or family, I am still very eager to do all kinds sport and am very open to try new one (as long as my wallet can handle it). Why am I still this eager to sports and what does it have to do with my way of choosing shoes? Glad you ask. Here is the story. It is very long, but trust me, it has a lot to do with my way of choosing shoes.

All started back in elementary school. Usually most kids in elementary schools spends their free time doing sports they like and become good in it (you know, because they are doing it since kids). Unfortunately, I am no ordinary kids (Yeah!). Instead of letting me play around in the field, kicking balls or just running around, my mom sent me to an English lesson, where I learned English (Duh!). It was a good thing for me actually, but the downside is that I didn’t get to play or exercise like all the other kids. To make things worst, my dad is not a fan of doing sports either. So, I have no experience of father son doing sports together. The closest thing to sport that we (me and my dad) did was cleaning his car and that was done by bribery (Ever wonder what would an innocent kid do just for a candy at that time). So, there was I, spending my childhood not doing sport and wasted the-so-called golden age for motor development.

Eventually, in junior high, I did soccer and I really enjoyed it. However, since I started late in doing/learning any sports, I already have this word of wisdom imprinted in my brain: “You sucks at sports and will always be, no matter how hard you try”. So, I didn’t wanna burden myself by trying to get into the varsity team or anything fancy and just played it for the sake of having fun and trying to get a little bit better maybe. Because of that, I also didn’t feel that I have to buy all the necessary stuff for soccer like the shoes, the leg guard, and all other stuff. Why? Because I sucks and I believe wearing that stuff wont make me a better player. So, I chose to play as a casual player that has minimum equipment rather than a fully equipped fancy player that lack skill. Besides, I am too cheap to spend money for that stuff anyway.

Up until my second year of high school, I’ve been doing soccer only and has almost no experience in other sports. Then, something happened and it changed me. It had something to do with girls and this is going to be a sad story, so, if you are a sensitive person, please get your tissue ready and refrain from snorting while reading this post.

It was a break between the end of second year and the start of third year. I met this girl, let’s say her name is Suminten. Suminten was hot, although she is short and is not quite appealing in chest department. She loves basketball (I think) and one time she invited me with couple of other friends to play some hoops. So, me being open to any new sports, accepted the invitation. What I didn’t know at that time is that it is going to me my top ten embarrassing moments in my entire life. What happened? Nothing special actually. It just that I was so bad during the game that every other man was picking on me to do some hot-shot free-style things to impress Suminten. Yeah, everyone was going for Suminten at that time and the game was more like an audition for Suminten’s possible boyfriend. But getting fooled by some offensive free-style was not the thing that left a deep scar in my gentle heart. It was other things.

Somewhere late in the game, when everyone including Suminten has established the fact that I sucked so bad (Hell, my dribble was like Penguin learning how to fly at that time), the opponent was doing a tight man-to-man defense while I was playing an eye-to-eye flirt with Suminten. After a nice pick-and-roll-and-stumbled-a-little bit, I finally managed to shake the guy that marked me and slided in into the keyhole area, free, open, unguarded, and awesome. The playmaker made his killer pass towards me, I barely caught it, and turned my self to the ring. We were losing by 1 points and it was just 10 seconds left on the clock, you know, the standard scenario of buzzer-beat reversal game. I focused all my attention to the ring and started doing my girly shoot motion. Suminten, who at that game was my opponent, suddenly shouted and I quoted:

“Stepen, if you make the shot, I’ll strip naked just for you…”

And that was the longest 10 seconds of my life.

That shout froze the entire court. Everyone stood their ground and turned their eye to me. Even the opponents stopped moving and no one came to guard me. They were all waiting for me to make the shots. So, I took my time, wiped my sweat, took a deep breath, and had my vision towards the ring again. I took another slow deep breath again as I saw the timer is showing 5 seconds left. In my brain, the word ‘strip naked’ kept echoing around and around and around and around and around and around and around. Three seconds on the clock and I made the shot.

The ball left my hand with a launch angle of 60 degrees from 180 cm above the ground and initial speed of 0.5m/s. The standard height of hoop was 3 m and my position was 4 m away from the hoop. Assuming that I am straight to the hoop and there is no wind at time time, determined it I make the shot or not. (Note that basketball’s size is 9 inches in diameter and the hoop’s size is 18inches).

Hint: Suminten did not strip naked for me.

So, there was I missing my chance of seeing naked girl in person for the very first time (Spoiler alert: up to now, there is no second time). I got depressed and stayed home for a week after that. I kept blaming myself for being weak and bad at sports. But then, I decided to changed. I don’t want to miss another chance of seeing naked girl in person and I promised that I must be able to do any kind of sports, at least up to an average basic level. And that was how I started becoming eager to do and learn all kinds of sports.

So, what does this have to do with the all-rounder shoes? Patience, my friend, we are getting there. Just a little bit more.

Of course, every sports has their own specialized gears. Shoes for soccer is different from the one for basketball or for swimming. Unfortunately, thanks to my low self esteem combined with cheap mindset, I don’t really want to spend money buying separate gears for each sports. So I eliminated all the unnecessary gear like armband, headband, wristband, collarband, and other bands, and decided to spent my money for what-so-called All-Rounder shoes that you can use for any sports or even for hanging out in the mall or for date (assuming) I will have one. Yeah, an All-Rounder shoes.

For those of you who does not know what is an all-rounder shoes, it is basically a running shoes. I just like saying it All-Rounder shoes cause it sounded better that way:D.

Okay, so that’s the history of how All-Rounder shoes come into my life and became a big part of me. I thank you for reading and I hope you don’t feel like wasting your time reading this pointless post, because that’s what I aim for.